Intra-firm diffusion of green energy technologies and the choice of policy instruments

摘要

Environmental benefits only unfold if green (environmentally friendly) technologies are widely diffused and intensively deployed within a firm. We investigate how different types of policies directly and in combination affect the number of different green energy technologies adopted by a single firm (intrafirm diffusion). Using data from a dedicated survey on the diffusion of green energy technologies of 1200 Swiss firms and applying well -identified econometric models, we found that energy taxes are a very effective policy instrument for the intra-firm diffusion of green energy technologies. Even more important, however, are non-political measures that show the largest effect among all tested instruments. Additional analyses show that (a) time-consistency in policy making is more important for energy tax regimes than for regulations and (b) no evidence for complementarities between the policy types could be identified. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.